Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Swingin' A Dead Cat

If you like to do a bit of traveling, as our staff does, you tend to notice that most places around the world have their own quirky habits and sayings that make them unique. One of the more bizarre but catchy regional phrases we've picked up over the years is supposed to be used for those times when you're telling someone you feel like a certain object or experience seems to be everywhere you turn: That you "can't swing a dead cat without hitting (the subject in question)."

As multiple journalists reported Monday, including our friend and colleague Rick Ungar, Mr. Romney's foreign policy speech on Monday was yet another vague stack of lies and reversals of his previous policy claims. It's true that some portions of Romney's speech tried to make his approach seem different than President Obama's; however, if you believed what Mitt was saying on Monday, you'd also have to believe that what he's said multiple times in the past about foreign policy was a lie.

For example, Mr. Romney insisted he'd increase the size of the U.S. Navy - except he has no idea of what kind of ships the Navy needs, or how he'd be able to pay for them. The best guess by expert military journalist Spencer Ackerman is that Romney's naval wish list would add $30-40 billion to a federal budget that Romney also promises to somehow cut.

It's a day like Monday when we loathe the corporate media culture that's turned many of the folks we once trusted into self-aggrandizing ratings whores. Many of those who cherry picked the polls on Monday, are the same hacks who helped enable the jobs report conspiracy theory last Friday. Frankly, some in the mainstream media seem willing to set themselves on fire if it would get them the attention and ratings they crave. Cherry-picking poll results to get a rise out of the audience is child's play, compared to wearing fire or swinging a dead cat.

Here's the truth: Single polls do not matter, except the one on election day. Accurate polling looks at trends, as we've told you many times over the years. It's one of the reasons we put such faith in Nate Silver and his team at FiveThirtyEight.com. They get the final numbers right because they get the aggregated polling trends correct, over time.